I was in the hrose arena at our town park last Thursday at 4-H practice. It was the first meeting this year that we'd been able to make it to, which isn't bad because 4-H jsut started. I was riding my favortie mare, Summer Breeze. She is a 9 year old sorrel appendix QH [just a guess on breed]. She came from an abusive home, so she was skittish when we got her. Then she got knocked up byt my donkey, Eeyore. She had a jenny mule named Sugar, then we put her into training about a year after weaning. She had about 4 or 5 months of training, then I started 4-H with her last year. It was her first year in it and my fourth. Let's jsut say last year was my best year in it. I decided to use her in it again this year, making it my first time ever that I've used the same horse in it 2 years in a row. Okay, now onto last Thursday:

We loaded Summer into the trailer, and she struggled a bit, but wasn't completely horrible. She is naturally nervous in the trailer, so it wsas nothing new to me that she was sweating when she got out. I let her calm down a bit and then started lunging her, which she was great at. Then I saddled her up. She stood just fine. Before I put her bridle on I lunged her again to make sure nothing was pinching and she would be calm. Then, I put on her bridle and went into the arena. They had us walk the horses around for around 10 or 15 minutes in there before we got5 on. She was a little nervous at first, but then she was cool, calm, and relaxed. They told us to get on, but wanted us to start using the mounting blocks. Summer isn't too fond of those, but I figured what the heck. So my 4-H leader came to hold her while I got on. She didn't want to stand for a little bit, but then she decided it would be okay. I got on and she was great, head exactrly where it should be, turning amazingly and not even losing her head when other horses cut us off. We walked and trotted around for about an hour, then out of nowhere the saddle started sliding. Sure, saddle slide allt he time, but not like this. I was trying to hang on the best I could, but Summer has never had this happen before, so she got a little worked up and took off running. I fell and landed directly on my head. They say I hit so hard that when I fell, I did a backwards somersault. Summer is a horse that I have a great bond with so when she felt me go, she slowed down. When she heard me hit she took off runninng again, but this time around the whole arena. They pulled the other horses into the middle and she was bucking and carrying on. Then she stopped and came into the middle to my 4-H leader and let him grab her halter. I got up and was over there, so I was holding her while he fixed the saddle which was now hanging under her stomach. My other 4-H leader went over and foundf my bridle which she had managed to snap into a few different pieces. Summer didn't want to stand on her right front leg, so my 4-H leader wanted to check out her legs. Summer let him pick it up, but when he did, she came very close to falling. Summer managed to catch herself before she fell....using my foot. [I forgot to thank her] We determined that she was okay, but my head hurt so they were going to load her and take me to the hospital.

On the ride to the hospital I lost some of the vision in my left eye. They checked me out and I got 2 CT scans; 1 on my head, 1 on my orbits [the area aroud my eye] I got one one my orbits becasue my left eye was pushed out farther than the right. Both scans came back clear, but I had a concussion. They called and opthamologist and made me an appointment for first thing in the morning. The opthamologist said that some of the muscled behind my eye had swollen causing my eye to push out and squished the nervers causing me to lose vision, but the swelling had gone down, so I'd be fine. I went to school when I got back and sat in the art room all day, because it was the day of finals and I didnt have any.

I have had head and neck pain since then, so I havent been able to do much, but they found out that I have a concussion, whiplash, and a pulled muscle in my neck.

So that's my story, kudos to you if you read the entire novel I just wrote. Haha. Any input?

Oh my god! OW! Do you know when you'll be 100% ok again? That must have been a little confidence-shattering, but you don't sound TOO fazed, so that's good. Can you ride anytime soon? Sorry to hear about that, doesn't sound pleasant at all!

The bit that I don't understand through all this is how did the saddle get so loose that it rolled off the horse. I don't mean to be critical but there must something wrong with whoever saddled up the horse! You said the saddle has slide before so my guess would be that Summer is very clever at blowing herself up when the girth is being done up, there are ways to remedy this. Not only that but my rule of thumb when saddleing up ANY and EVERY horse that I have ever met is to assume that it blows its gut when being girthed. My guess is that the looseness of the girth went unnoticed due to the use of a mounting block. So sorry about the concussion but you have learnt a valuable lesson - saddle a horse properly, Check the girth not once, not twice, but atleast three times before mounting. Even though my horse doesn't blow herself up I do up the girth in stages, walk her in a quick circle, tighten, circle, tighten you get the picture.

We checked the saddle after lunging her. It dsidnt really roll onto her side until I fell off because I sort of dragged it there in the process of falling, but we were trotting when it started sliding, and I couldnt catch it in time to stop it. I've got a smaller girth that I'm going to start using and I'm going to find a breast collar. My headache is starting to go away thouigh, which is good and the swelling in my neck has gone down quite a bit, too. Looks like I'm going to be able to ride tomorrow (:

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the The Horse Forum forums, you must first register.

Already have a Horse Forum account?
Members are allowed only one account per person at the Horse Forum, so if you've made an account here in the past you'll need to continue using that account. Please do not create a new account or you may lose access to the Horse Forum. If you need help recovering your existing account, please Contact Us. We'll be glad to help!

New to the Horse Forum?Please choose a username you will be satisfied with using for the duration of your membership at the Horse Forum. We do not change members' usernames upon request because that would make it difficult for everyone to keep track of who is who on the forum. For that reason, please do not incorporate your horse's name into your username so that you are not stuck with a username related to a horse you may no longer have some day, or use any other username you may no longer identify with or care for in the future.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Old Thread Warning

This thread is more than 90 days old. When a thread is this old, it is often better to start a new thread rather than post to it. However, If you feel you have something of value to add to this particular thread, you can do so by checking the box below before submitting your post.I am aware that this is an old thread and I want to revive it rather than starting a new thread.